The dark Audi on the corner of the street looked like so many other luxury cars. First I walked past it, until I recognized the damaged front fender. It was Breger’s car. Cautiously I walked around it. No one was inside. The doors were locked. Tiny red alarm lights blinked on the doors. I lowered myself onto the edge of the sidewalk and took the little container of lighter fluid from one of the side pockets of my backpack. I flipped the nozzle up and squirted a good-sized jet of fluid over one of the car’s rear tires. Then I took the lighter from my pants pocket, pushed the cap open and spun the wheel. With great caution I held the little flame up to the tire and immediately the fire began to envelop it. From a distance I squirted on a bit more fluid until the fire took hold. Then I walked around the car and lit up the other rear tire. It wasn’t until I had gone around the corner, leaving the car smouldering and burning behind me, that I knew how helplessly angry I was. I wanted to strike out, kick, bite if necessary. Suddenly the fact that I had hit one of them hard didn’t matter to me anymore. At the very most it hadn’t been hard enough, and that realization struck me like an incoming tidal wave. I had ended up in another world, where life was not an unquestioned right. If I wasn’t careful I’d be handing in my own life before I knew it.
Limping, I hurried on to Stadionweg and just managed to catch a late tram bound for Central Station, dropping into one of the seats in the back. As the tram rode away I could see an orange fire blaze up in the distance. Soon the fire disappeared from sight. The tram moved on. The hard little bench was an uncomfortable place to sit. No matter how much I shifted back and forth, I could find no position that would alleviate the pain in my back. I clasped my arms around the backpack on my lap and rested my head against the stiff synthetic fabric jabbing my cheeks. Tears ran from my eyes.
Jessica.
I cursed, very loudly, and my voice boomed through the carriage. The few other people in the tram looked around, annoyed. I was the umpteenth Amsterdam loony riding in a public conveyance, nothing more. I saw their reaction. I knew their reaction. One week ago I would have done the same thing: look around, eyebrows raised, provoked expression. It was counterproductive. What do you mean, provoked? Annoyed?
‘KEEP YOUR FUCKING EYES TO YOURSELF!’ I screamed at a man who had turned around, and I kicked the seat ahead of me, harder than I thought, probably because my brain was completely disengaged. The seat cracked but remained intact. Soon the tram came to a halt at the corner of Stadionweg and Beethovenstraat. The driver got out of his seat and walked the full length of the tram, stopping at the seat right in front of me. He placed a hand on the back of that seat and bent forward toward me, only very slightly.
‘What’s this all about?’ he said. ‘You can get out here if you want.’
I tried to say something—I no longer remember what—but my lips trembled uncontrollably and suddenly the only sounds I could produce were gibberish. My arms still clamped around my backpack with the two laptops as the hard core of my existence, I began rocking slowly back and forth. Jessica was dead. She was no longer there. Her crazy, free-spirited way of life, searching for extremes to keep the remorseless precision of her brain in check, was no more. Not because she wanted it (this was the last thing she wanted) but because someone else had decided it was enough. She was dead, not because I didn’t trust her but because she had done something she shouldn’t have done. Thoughts grinding circles in my head, like ruts in a road. The tram driver leaned a little further toward me.
‘Okay, we all have a hard day every now and then,’ he said. He put a hand on my shoulder and pushed me gently so my back was pressed against the back of the seat. I almost jumped out of my skin from the pain. My face contracted into a grimace and I clamped my jaws together. There would be no more screaming here. Control was what I needed, and this was the moment to get it back.
‘Hard day,’ I said, squeezing the words out between my lips. Tears streamed down my cheeks. This was beyond the reach of my powers of control.
‘Right,’ said the driver, and he let go of my shoulder. I immediately leaned forward on my arms to take the tension off my back.
‘So we’re going to calm down?’ he asked.
I nodded. ‘Calm down,’ I said.
‘Great,’ he said, and he looked at me. Something wasn’t right. He saw it, too, but whether it was the nighttime or the late hour or problems with his wife or something else, he didn’t take it any further. ‘You see now?’ said the man. ‘It’s not so hard.’ And with an encouraging pat on my back he returned to his seat.
Slowly I dropped down even further. The pain was unbearable. The comforting pat was more than my vertebrae could bear. I noticed that it was growing darker. Darker and quieter. I couldn’t drop forward any further because I was jammed against the back of the seat in front of me. The two laptops in the backpack on my lap were keeping me upright, though I myself was incapable of realizing it.
40 An unnatural angle
It wasn’t until the tram made its turn crossing the bridge in front of the station, wheels shrieking, that I came to. The shrill sound tore through everything and jerked me out of my stupor, back to my conscious state, where the first thing to be registered was pain. I was still alive.
Just barely.
I heaved myself upright, got out of the tram and looked across the square in front of the station. It was busy. The police were patrolling in pairs, checking people everywhere. Groups here, single individuals there. Confrontation hung in the air like a scent, sharp and hard. Opinions were being shouted like weapons in an endless battle. Boys, men—always men—in search of the punch they’re eager to deliver and the punch that hits home.
There were puddles on the dark square from an earlier rain. Now it was dry, but the air was so saturated that it still soaked you through. I dragged myself listlessly to the other end of the station. I don’t know why. I walked for the sake of walking, the backpack pushing against the sensitive spot with every step I took. After a couple of paces I hung it from my shoulder.
On the other side of the square was the big Ibis Hotel. Slowly I walked to the middle strip with trams on the left and the right, the triangular area that extends to the bridge, and there I stopped. I had been walking around for at least ten minutes and hadn’t gone one step further. This was the tip of Amsterdam well past midnight, the city I wasn’t going to leave until I had solved my problems, and I hadn’t gotten any further than the front door. Or the back door. A couple of steps further back and I’d be floating in the IJ, tossed out of the city, washed out to the IJsselmeer—or the North Sea (I didn’t even know what direction the water flowed in).
My city. My life. I could preface everything with ‘my’ without having to know anything about it. My country, my job, my work, my family, my brother. Each time it seemed that nothing and no one really cared about me at all. My job was gone, my work wasn’t what I was told it would be, my family had fallen apart and my brother wasn’t even a brother. My life was no more than a memory. A vague memory. Every day more details disappeared, things I still thought were immutable two weeks ago. Permanent. My life was shaped by people and by who they were. Because of them I knew who I was. Where I was. Without people all that was left were things, and things never become friends.
And my Jessica, I thought, even though she wasn’t my Jessica any more. It was the knowledge that she could never be my Jessica again that made her my Jessica, in my head, where suddenly everything was going on. I sat on a bench and looked at the Damrak, dressed up like a party without a purpose. The ugliest street in the Netherlands, ruined forever by cheap cafes and bad urban design. The party was fake. In fact there was no party, at least not any that I had noticed.
The rain resumed its duties and fat drops began falling on my head, my shoulders and my legs. I knew what I had to do. Of course I knew what I had to do. It was the last thing I wanted to do, but I had no choice. What Jessica had told me about the assignments she was working on and the significance of that work was too scanty, too
thin. She had confirmed my suspicions, but no more than that. It was beginning to look more and more like RISC was HC&P’s main project. When I looked around on the internet I found references everywhere. If I wanted to learn anything about it I’d have to go to the office now, as soon as possible, before her things were cleared away and before every trace of Jessica Polse had been erased. The best time would be the middle of the night. The night watchmen didn’t know who was who, and with my new pass I could get into the building without anyone thinking anything of it. All I had to do was to act as if I belonged there, and all I needed to bring it off was a suit and a shirt. Which I had.
I checked into the Ibis, paid in advance, and went up to my room. Once I got inside, in the safety of the closed space, my functions began to break down. Moving became increasingly difficult. Without painkillers I couldn’t do anything. My back was a wreck. I chewed five paracetamols into paste, one by one, and swallowed them down with plenty of water. Then I carefully undressed and folded the damp clothes into a small packet. I threw my underwear away (I had no desire to walk around with dirty laundry). In the bathroom I took the old band-aids off my face, washed, and dabbed my face dry, very carefully. I did as little as possible. No shower, no bath, no shaving, nothing. I had to avoid any form of relaxation, because if I were to unwind now there would be no energy left.
With the little scissors that came with the pocket knife I cut band-aids into tiny strips and stuck them over the wounds, straight and neat. I took a clean change of underwear from the backpack and a pair of clean socks, the suit and the shirt. Then I slowly dressed. The new clothes were dry and clean and soft. I put cigarettes and lighter in the pockets of my jacket, put my pocket knife in a pants pocket and my wallet in an inside pocket. I stuffed the damp clothing in a separate compartment of the backpack. Then I put the dark baseball cap on my head and pulled the visor down over my eyes. In the mirror I looked very slick. All of it fake.
I went downstairs, put my key on the counter and left. It was way after one o’clock by the time I climbed into a taxi and gave the driver the address of HC&P. The car glided through Amsterdam to the strange sounds of Arabic disco. The driver left me to myself, which suited me fine. Every few minutes he barked something into a microphone and received a scratchy response. I slumped down in the seat beside him, my backpack between my knees, and thought I could easily spend the rest of the night there. Just driving, into the city, out of the city, funky whining coming from the speakers, man at the steering wheel who was fine with everything as long as I paid my fare. And money was no object.
I had the taxi stop on the Parnassusweg access road. After giving the driver a hundred euros I told him to wait until I was back.
‘This might take a while,’ I said.
The man flipped the two fifty euro notes between his fingers and said, ‘For a hundred and fifty I’ll wait until seven o’clock tomorrow morning.’
‘No longer than that?’ I asked, as I gave him a third fifty-euro note.
‘I go off duty at seven.’ He laughed. ‘After that you’re on your own.’
I stepped out of the car with caution, leaving my backpack behind.
‘Before you go off duty, I’ll be back,’ I said. ‘Don’t go away.’
I crossed the street, walked under the overpass and continued along the back of the Atrium building to the new towers next to the World Trade Center. Without hastening my steps I proceeded to the entrance. For a moment I was afraid sirens would start wailing all over the place and I’d be overtaken by security guards. For a moment. I dismissed the thought from my mind, took out the pass Batte had given me and held it up to the scanner. The scanner emitted a brief peep, the red light turned green and the glass doors slid open. Wolfsen had kept his word and Vince Batte had delivered the goods. I took a deep breath, tightened all my reluctant body parts and walked into the entrance hall.
The night watchman was looking at the TV screen behind the counter. My heart was in my throat. If I could get past this, the rest would be simple. Everything depended on my ability to act normally. I put my left hand in my pocket, waved with the pass in my right hand and sauntered to the security gate as if I didn’t feel a thing, as if the pain in my back wasn’t there at all. With the new suit and the cap, I was just eccentric enough to pass for a midnight consultant.
‘Evening,’ I said.
‘Late one?’ responded the man. I had never seen him before. So far so good.
‘And it’ll be even later before I’m done,’ I said. I held my pass up to the next scanner with an experienced gesture. The gate peeped and let me through.
‘Take a fall?’ asked the night watchman, pointing to the band-aids on my face.
‘Marital abuse,’ I said. ‘Why do you think I’m here so late?’ He laughed and I passed through the gate and into the hall where the elevators were. In four more steps I was out of his field of vision, so he didn’t see me get in the elevator with much less nonchalance, dragging my leg behind me.
What I didn’t see were the instructions all the security personnel had been given, which included reporting all unplanned visits by personnel outside normal office hours. At HC&P that was eight o’clock in the evening. I didn’t see that, and I certainly didn’t see that my visit was actually being reported.
What I did see were the cameras that were aimed at the most important areas of the building. They registered persons in the elevators and in the hall directly in front of the elevators on every floor, as well as a couple of other places. No matter how good my pass was, the night watchman didn’t need to know where in the building I was going. I took the elevator to the fifth floor, got out, walked down one of the corridors all the way to the end, beyond the reach of the camera, and took the stairs up to the ninth. Before I began climbing I took a strip of paracetamols out of my pocket and popped two more into my mouth. I chewed them without water, swallowed them and began limping up the stairs.
I finally emerged four floors higher in the corridor I was aiming for. No cameras there, either. Even if someone were to come looking for me, he’d have to check every floor, and the building was large. As far as that was concerned I wasn’t in a hurry, but the sooner I was able to get back outside the better I would feel.
The office was deserted. I left the lit corridor and entered the dark work area, the large room filled with hot desks. Next to the door were the carts, all lined up neatly. I didn’t turn the lights on in the room or everyone outside would immediately see where I was. Gazing into the semi-darkness, I examined the carts by the light of the corridor. There were sixteen of them and they all looked exactly the same. The lowest part of each cart, right above the wheels, was a compartment with a door that could be locked. That was meant for work materials. All the documents containing information about clients were supposed to be kept behind the little locked door. Above that was a shelf where all kinds of office supplies were kept: pens, pencils, paperclips. And above that was a bookshelf that was tipped slightly backward to keep the books from falling out. Most people kept reference books on those shelves and usually a couple of folders and binders related to their work, simply because the locked compartment was too small for all the things you might accumulate over the course of a project. It was like the whole idea of the hot desk, which didn’t take into account the fact that you needed to have all your project-related materials close by, within reach. Or at least more than you could fit on your desk.
The carts had nameplates on the handles. Gijs’s was there. Mine wasn’t. As childish as it may seem, I felt this as an unjust snub, a wound I didn’t deserve. Against my better judgment I looked one more time to make sure I hadn’t missed it. Idiotic. And stupid, too. I had to keep from being tempted by such trivialities. I didn’t have time for it, and if Breger got his way I wouldn’t have the breath for it, either. Priorities were more important than ever.
Jessica’s cart was there. I took the handle and pulled it over to the closest chair. Then I took a desk lamp, bent it down and turned
it on so the light shone directly onto the cart. Seated, I took a quick look at the uppermost shelf. Two folders, one with information on an assignment for an oil company and the other with reports of the steering committee meetings of a health care facility. The rest were books and old reports, reference material. Nothing interesting. I felt the door of the lowest compartment. Locked. Logical. Most of us kept the key on the shelf among the pens and other paraphernalia. I pulled it forward and looked. Jessica had placed a kind of cutlery organizer there so the various things had their own compartments, but no matter how hard I looked I still couldn’t find any key.
I opened my pocket knife and stuck the point between the compartment door and the side of the cart. The lock was small, more a design element than something to provide protection. I pushed the blade in as far as I could and began prying. The cracking and scraping sounded ridiculously loud in the silent space. Instinctively I stopped to listen. I heard nothing. It was quiet in the corridor, and the only sounds were vague noises from outside making their way in. So vague that it took a minute before I realized just what I was hearing. A slamming car door. Not something you’d expect at this time of night. I was here, and if anyone else were to come into the building I wanted to know who it was. I jumped out of the chair, cursed my back and rushed to the window. Standing off to the side I looked down below to the road running along the front of the building. It was difficult to see in the dark from nine storeys up, but I could identify the makes of cars from great distances. Parked along the sidewalk was a dark Audi. It couldn’t have been the same one whose tires I had set fire to a couple of hours before. Evidently the gentlemen weren’t short on cars. A man was standing on the driver’s side, slightly bent over and talking to the man behind the wheel. Soon a third man came out of the front door of the building. He made a beckoning motion. The man next to the car walked to the front door and they both went inside. The last man parked the car right in front of the building.
Mr. Miller Page 21